With the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, the Las Vegas Raiders are expected to select Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza. However, this is just one of 10 picks that Las Vegas has in the 2026 NFL Draft.
After losing 14 games last season, the Raiders have a lot of holes and general manager John Spytek needs to find some difference-makers. One NFL analyst has a solution that he believes would get the Raiders going in a positive direction.
Las Vegas Raiders Urged to Trade Into Bottom Half of the First Round
The Raiders are obviously hoping that Mendoza will be their franchise quarterback. Given his college experience and track record of winning on the biggest stage, he is easily the safest QB prospect in the 2026 NFL Draft. After selecting Mendoza, NFL.com columnist Matt Okada argues that Las Vegas should trade back into the first round to land one of his favorite targets.
“There are a number of realistic trades that I could see happening in Round 1, but the move I want to see most? Give me the Raiders investing in their prospective franchise quarterback, Fernando Mendoza, by landing his favorite target from Indiana,” he wrote.
“If wide receiver Omar Cooper Jr. is still on the board later in the first round, I’d love to see John Spytek maneuver up from Las Vegas’ Round 2 slot (36th overall) to score a WR1 with prebuilt chemistry (and a fifth-year option). Top target for the move: Howie Roseman and the Eagles at No. 23, just ahead of the receiver-hungry Browns.”
Cooper enjoyed his best collegiate season with Mendoza, catching 69 passes for 937 yards and 13 touchdowns. In the postseason, Cooper recorded 2 touchdowns, helping Indiana finish 16-0, winning the CFP national title. He landed at the No. 10 spot in the PFSN CFB WR Impact metric, posting an 83.0 grade. Okada believes reuniting the duo would pay immediate and long-term dividends.
Currently, the Raiders own the fourth pick of the second round, but Spytek has made it clear that they are “open to all options” in terms of trades.
“I didn’t think that we were going to trade down twice in the second-round last year, and we felt like the trade offers that we got were just too good to pass up. And if someone’s looking to bail and we think that there’s a really high-quality player we can go get, we’ll certainly consider it,” Spytek confirmed. “And if someone’s offering us too much to not pick, then we’ll do that too.”
It’s also worth noting that Cooper seems like a good fit for new head coach Klint Kubiak’s offense. The Raiders signed Jalen Nailor to serve as the big-play threat.
Drafting Cooper would serve two purposes. First, he provides Mendoza with a known target that he already has chemistry with. Next, Cooper complements Nailor and Brock Bowers well, allowing the star tight end to win down the seam.
Many mock drafts have the Raiders selecting Mendoza’s other former WR, Elijah Sarratt, with a mid-round pick, but Spytek is willing to make aggressive moves so perhaps he pursues Mendoza’s WR1 instead. Cooper is the No. 23-ranked player in PFSN’s NFL Mock Draft Simulator.
At 6’0″, 201 pounds, Cooper is a dense, compact pass-catcher with a low center of gravity and effortless explosiveness and vertical stretching. He can extend seams as a RAC threat with his range and contact balance, and he has the quickness and prying strength to work through adjacent contact, but he also flashes great salesmanship and tempo control as a route runner. Drops can be an issue on occasion for Cooper, and he has room to keep refining his route tree in the intermediate range, but overall, he’s a budding three-level threat with a particular affinity for RAC accumulation and vertical advances.
The Raiders have not won a playoff game since the 2002 AFC Championship game. Could Mendoza and Cooper team up to end that decades-long streak?
